New Delhi, 21 Nov

The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday announced its first list of 11 candidates for the Delhi Assembly polls, dropping three sitting MLAs and fielding six leaders who switched over from the BJP and the Congress recently.

Elections in the national capital are due in February to elect 70 members of the Delhi Legislative Assembly. AAP is the first party to release a list of candidates.

Making the announcement at a press conference here, Delhi AAP convener Gopal Rai reasoned that the early declaration of names of candidates was because eight of the 11 constituencies are not held by the party. Six of these eight constituencies are currently held by the BJP.

He also rebutted suggestions that outsiders who recently joined AAP were given tickets at the cost of party leaders.

The names of candidates were announced after a meeting of the AAP's political affairs committee, headed by party national convener Arvind Kejriwal. AAP, which has been ruling Delhi since 2015, won 62 seats in the 2020 assembly polls.

Talking to reporters, Rai said the tickets were given strictly based on performance, surveys and public opinion as was promised by Kejriwal.

Sitting AAP MLAs who were denied tickets include Rituraj Jha from Kirari, Gulab Singh Yadav from Matiala and Abdul Rahman from Seelampur. Both Jha and Gulab Singh are two-term MLAs. The party fielded Brahm Singh Tanwar from Chhatarpur, Anil Jha from Kirari and BB Tyagi from Laxmi Nagar. All three recently quit the BJP and joined AAP.

Former Congress leader Choudhary Zubair Ahmed has been fielded from Seelampur, while ex-MLAs Veer Singh Dhingan and Somesh Shokeen have been given tickets from Seemapuri and Matiala respectively. Ahmed, Dhingan and Shokeen joined the Aam Aadmi Party from the Congress. AAP MLA from Chhatarpur Kartar Singh Tanwar quit the party and joined the BJP. He was disqualified as MLA by the Speaker.

Rajender Pal Gautam, AAP MLA from Seemapuri, resigned from the membership of the Delhi Assembly and the party to join the Congress. Former AAP MLA Sarita Singh (Rohtas Nagar), Ram Singh Netaji (Badarpur), Gaurav Sharma (Ghonda), Manoj Tyagi (Karawal Nagar) and Deepak Singhal (Vishwas Nagar) are the other candidates whose names figure in the first list.

The party fielded Sarita Singh and Ram Singh Netaji again from Rohtas Nagar and Badarpur, respectively. They lost to their BJP rivals in the 2020 Assembly polls with narrow margins.

Rai said that the party has paced its election campaign with the release of these 11 names, adding that in the coming days, AAP will start a new campaign.